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makes sense

Originally Posted by PGlaves

I disagree. You want to match engine rpm and transmission input shaft rpm which will minimize any slipping action in the clutch. You don't do this dumping the engine speed back down too far. Just up a little on downshifts, and down a little on upshifts.

Thanx, Paul. I became particularly curious when the guy who runs the indep shop that I sometimes frequent looked at my clutch en route to an input spline lube. I'd just bought this 2000 1100RT w just shy of 60 K on the clock and wanted to see what I'd really gotten myself into. He measured and said the clutch was about 50% worn. I chose not to replace it, and hoped i could get at least another 30 thousand miles out of it. He also said that he'd recently inspected another 2000 RT w about 100 K on it and the clutch showed virtually no wear whatsoever. i attributed it to the fact that owner was a long-time Chi- Region member with lots of miles and lots of experience, and therefore really healthy shifting habits.

Who knows?? maybe the original owner of mine was stuck in daily Chicago rush hour traffic both ways. Maybe the other guy's 100 k was all long days on the slab at 80 mph out in KS and NE with no good reason to slow down.

Don't mean to hijack but I'm trying to learn about how these things work. thanx to all for the responses.

We might as well walk. ~ Adam Guettel The Light In The Piazza
used to own: 1982 R100T, 1984 R65, 1986K75C, 1997 R1100RT, R850R, K75S, 1978 R100RS... what was I thinking?

I agree on the minimal clutch action. Oilheads need the consistent momentum of the spinning engine between shifts. I use maybe 1/4 travel of my clutch lever, and almost no throttle "chop" between shifts and my RS shifts much smoother that way. I get normal clutch wear too.

Get trained! The best "performance" upgrade you can get is YOU. Visit msf-usa.org for training info.

I was getting a tire changed at the dealer recently and began questioning the mechanic about the most common problems he sees on the r1150rt. His shop has the CHP contract, so he services literally hundreds of the bikes each year. Bottom line, he said, is change the fluids, especially the brake fluid, and they'll run forever. He said concern about clutch spline lubrication is unfounded. In the hundreds of bikes he's worked on he never once performed the service. Failure, he said, is rare.
I asked him why people on BMWMOA talk so much about it and he said it's pure parnoia. Don't believe what you read on the Internet, he said.
He didn't strike me as a company apologist. So what's up with the divergent opinion?

My never-in-police-service 2002 RTP has eaten two clutch input shafts - the first at 33,000 miles and the second at 72,000 miles.

Tell your guy who says it never happens to please get in touch with me. I'll show him two enormous invoices to prove it does.

with that rate of shaft failure (33K for first one and 41K for 2nd) i would be highly suspicious of a misalignment between engine and trans housing.
ever have that looked at?

I'm convinced that's what's wrong with my bike, and that's why there are so many anecdotal reports of clutch input shafts failing. It's quite obvious that a certain % of Oilheads has a misalingment between the engine casing and the transmission housing, but BMW refuses to acknowledge this issue, and of course refuses to remedy the problem.

If I had an extra $10,000 laying around, I'd hire an engineer and a machine shop to get the misalignment quantified and fixed - but since I don't have those resources, I'll just put in a new clutch input shaft every 30-40k miles and let BMW keep telling me my bike doesn't have a defect that originated in Berlin.

if you go over to Pelicanparts.com's R1100S tech forum board, and do a search on input shaft failures/repairs, there is at least one very extensive writeup with pics and descriptions about how to address this issue.
beyond my pay grade, but given that info, a copetent machine shop could take care of the issue for much less than the $10K you guesstimated it to cost. and if done as part of the next failure's repair, it would probably be not that great a deal beyond what you would be doing for just the basic fix.

I disagree. You want to match engine rpm and transmission input shaft rpm which will minimize any slipping action in the clutch. You don't do this dumping the engine speed back down too far. Just up a little on downshifts, and down a little on upshifts.

Yes, when you get it right it's like an automatic transmission shifting. No big clutch or throttle inputs, just enough to unload the transmission and make a smooth, quick shift. I know I screwed it up if my passenger's helmet smacks me in the back of the head.

Match the RPM

I guess I'm just repeating what Paul Glaves said, nut I have been riding Beemers since 1974, including many years in the daily commute, and have never had to replace a clutch. Once you have the feel for your bike (and my first one had no tach) it is easy to match the engine revs for the next gear, up or down, with what the road speed and gear selection demand. Leisurely acceleration or full throttle, I rarely mismatch. The only significant wear on the clutch is taking off from a standstill, and I am careful to minimize the time spent in the slip portion. I've put as many as 85K on my bikes, and the next owner never reported any clutch problems back to me.

I think this is accurate. Back in my previous life I was a Service Manager for a British Leyland auto dealer. Certain customers could be relied upon to have problems; others, hardly anything. I believe much of it was poor habits.

I couldn't agree more with this post and the one that it quoted. Having come from the police universe some are much harder on bikes/vehicles than others.

If you want to bag the unit, its only going to take so much and then it will cost you.

I'm convinced that's what's wrong with my bike, and that's why there are so many anecdotal reports of clutch input shafts failing. It's quite obvious that a certain % of Oilheads has a misalingment between the engine casing and the transmission housing, but BMW refuses to acknowledge this issue, and of course refuses to remedy the problem.

If I had an extra $10,000 laying around, I'd hire an engineer and a machine shop to get the misalignment quantified and fixed - but since I don't have those resources, I'll just put in a new clutch input shaft every 30-40k miles and let BMW keep telling me my bike doesn't have a defect that originated in Berlin.

You may want to try a known-good used transmission next time. That's what I'm doing. Fingers crossed.

You may want to try a known-good used transmission next time. That's what I'm doing. Fingers crossed.

Seems like a good idea. In nearly 50 years of car ownership I've never worried about driveshaft spline wear. The big difference is that there is no possibility of mis-alignment induced motion between two halves. I guess if the alignment were perfect we'd see virtually no wear on the clutch splines on our bikes.

I see that BMW finally bit the bullet and designed that out of the new 1200GS.